STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Bowing to the wishes of the Staten Island community, the new PS 71 that will open on the former site of Doctors' Hospital in Concord will be home to students from Pre-K through eighth grade, it was announced yesterday.

"This process of taking an abandoned hospital and providing this community its first real middle school choice is simultaneously stunning, rewarding, satisfying and the cause for pure joy for me and my staff and the entire PS 48 family," said City Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn).

The DOE also said the old PS 48 site, across Targee Street from Doctors' Hospital, would be home to a new K-5 school.

Said Walcott, "We look forward to PS 48's proposal to expand at Doctors' Hospital, and we are thrilled to work with the local community on a brand new K-5 school to serve Staten Island's growing community of families."

DOE initially did not embrace the Pre-K-8 concept for the new school, but Oddo said Walcott and Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson had given him an opportunity to make a "closing argument" in favor of the designation at a meeting last month.

"Indeed, this administration has done right by the entire PS 48 family and our community," Oddo said. "I am so proud, grateful and happy they are righting this longstanding wrong."